Tag: Julius Caesar

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Terminalia God of the Boundary February 23rd

Hans Holbein the Younger Design for a Stained Glass Window with Terminus. Pen and ink and brush, grey wash, watercolour, over preliminary chalk drawing, 31.5 × 25 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel.
‘Terminus is often pictured as a bust on a boundary stone, His festival is ‘Terminalia’

Today is ‘Terminalia, the Roman day for setting land boundaries. The festival of Terminus was a pastoral outdoor festival marking the boundaries of towns and villages. It resembles the Beating of the Bounds tradition that we have in Britain. This is in recorded, in the UK, from anglo-saxon times, and still continues in some parishes. I will talk about this on Ascension Day in May.

Terminus was an old ancient God who was the God of the boundary, the border, the edge, the liminal God. Ovid says King Tarquinus swept away the old Gods on the Capital Hill and Jupiter became the Great God. All the old temples were taken down except for that of Terminus. Instead, Jupiter’s Temple was built around Terminus’ temple. They put a hole in the roof because Terminus had to be worshipped in the open air.

Terminus’s motto was “concedo nulli” which means “I yield to no one”. This was adopted by Erasmus as his personal motto in 1509.

Terminalia and the Roman Year

The Terminalia was celebrated on the last day of the old Roman year. February was the last month of the year. The rulers of Rome added an intercalary month called Mercedonius in an attempt to keep the Solar year in tune with the seasons. And when the intercalary month was added, the last five days of February were given to the month Mercedonius. The resulting ‘leap year‘ was either 377 or 378 days long. So, in those years, the 23rd of February was the Terminus of the year.

The intercalary months were added at the direction of the Pontiffs, supposedly every two or three years. But the Pontiffs were often swayed by political advantage and delayed the decision. By the time of Julius Caesar, the seasons were wildly out of sync with the calendar year. The Dictator, responded by instituting ‘the Year of Confusion’. This was over 400 days long. It brought in the Julian Calendar which realigned the calendar back in line with the seasons. It resolved the problem by a leap day every four years. This was based on the almost correct calculation of a solar year being 365.25 days. It was another 1500 years before that inaccuracy was corrected. By which time the year was another 11 days out of kilter, and the Julian Year was replaced by the Gregorian Year,

For more on Leap Years and the Roman Year look at my post here.

Ovid & Terminalia

Here is what Ovid, in ‘Fasti’ says about Terminalis


When night has passed, let the god be celebrated
With customary honour, who separates the fields with his
sign.
Terminus, whether a stone or a stump buried in the earth,
You have been a god since ancient times.
You are crowned from either side by two landowners,
Who bring two garlands and two cakes in offering.
An altar’s made: here the farmer’s wife herself
Brings coals from the warm hearth on a broken pot.
The old man cuts wood and piles the logs with skill,
And works at setting branches in the solid earth.
Then he nurses the first flames with dry bark,
While a boy stands by and holds the wide basket.
When he’s thrown grain three times into the fire
The little daughter offers the sliced honeycombs.
Others carry wine: part of each is offered to the flames:
The crowd, dressed in white, watch silently.
Terminus, at the boundary, is sprinkled with lamb’s blood,
And doesn’t grumble when a sucking pig is granted him.
Neighbours gather sincerely, and hold a feast,
And sing your praises, sacred Terminus:
You set bounds to peoples, cities, great kingdoms:
Without you every field would be disputed.
You curry no favour: you aren’t bribed with gold,
Guarding the land entrusted to you in good faith.
If you’d once marked the bounds of Thyrean lands,
Three hundred men would not have died,
Nor Othryadesí name be seen on the pile of weapons.
O how he made his fatherland bleed!
What happened when the new Capitol was built?
The whole throng of gods yielded to Jupiter and made
room:
But as the ancients tell, Terminus remained in the shrine
Where he was found, and shares the temple with great
Jupiter.
Even now there’s a small hole in the temple roof,
So he can see nothing above him but stars.
Since then, Terminus, you’ve not been free to wander:
Stay there, in the place where you’ve been put,
And yield not an inch to your neighbour’s prayers,
Lest you seem to set men above Jupiter:
And whether they beat you with rakes, or ploughshares,
Call out: This is your field, and that is his!
There’s a track that takes people to the Laurentine fields,
The kingdom once sought by Aeneas, the Trojan leader:
The sixth milestone from the City, there, bears witness
To the sacrifice of a sheep’s entrails to you, Terminus.
The lands of other races have fixed boundaries:
The extent of the City of Rome and the world is one

Book II: February 23: The Terminalia

Translated by A. S. Kline copyright 2004

See the following posts for the Roman Year:

Romulus’s 10 month year here
Roman Months here
More on the Ides of March here
Leap Years and the Roman Year

Today, is Sexagesima Sunday. The second Sunday before Ash Wednesday.  It comes from the Latin for sixtieth and is very approximately 60 days before Easter.  It is the time when we should be reflecting on our sins and lifestyle before we enter Lent.

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St. Genevieve’s Day January 3rd

St Genevieve stained glass windown. réalisé au XIXe siècle par Alfred Gérente pour orner le corridor de la nouvelle sacristie de Notre-Dame de Paris.
Saint Geneviève praying for the end of the rain. 19th Century by Alfred Gérente Notre-Dame de Paris.

St Genevieve of Nanterre (c. 419/422 AD – 502/512 AD) has her feast day today. Nanterre is an ancient settlement swallowed up by modern Paris. Genevieve was a most remarkable woman who met St Germanus of Auxerre on his way to Britain. Geneviève was only 7 when she met Germanus. He encouraged her piety. She became a consecrated virgin (someone who made vows of chastity to be a ‘bride of Christ’). Thereby living an aesthetic life of fasting and prayer. Miracles soon became associated with her, (including changing the weather) and the ‘usual’ medical miracles. After moving to Paris, she encouraged the women of the City to stay in the City for prayer and fasting to prevent the Huns capturing the City in 451. Attila and the Huns abandoned the siege.

St Genevieve saved the City on other occasions too, helped build two large Church projects, including St Dennis. In the medieval period, she became the Patron Saint of Paris. She is patron to: Paris, shepherds, winemakers, wax-chandlers, hatmakers; against eye complaints, fever, plagues, drought, and war.

St Germanus

St Germanus played a significant role in Genevieve’s life, protecting her from slander and attack. He is one of the most significant figures in post Roman studies in Britain. Accounts of his visits to Britain in the early 5th Century are among the very few descriptions of post-Roman life. He was sent to Britain to counter the Pelagian Heresy, which was endangering the Catholic version of Christianity.

17th Century print of Pelagius

He took part in a public debate about heresy which took place in a disused Roman amphitheatre. For more about Germanus and his visit to Britain read my post here.

More on Nanterre

Incidently, Nanterre has an interesting prehistory. The name in Celtic means ‘enduring sacred site’. A large cemetery has been found, which helps support the possibility that it is the original site of Paris. Julius Caesar attended an assembly with local Gallic leaders in the area. The topography of Nanterre fits as well for the location of the assembly as the island in the Seine (Île de la Cité) which is an alternative location.

This is an excerpt from Julius’s Caesar book. (It is photographed from my book- details below).

‘In Their Own Words – A Literary Companion To The Origins Of London‘ D A Horizons,  Kevin Flude

To buy the Kindle (£2.40) or a paperback version (£5.99), click here.  

Cover of Kevin Flude's 'In their Own Words'

First written in January 2023, revised and republished January 2024, and 2025

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November ‘the month of immolations’

Kalendar of Shepherds November

November is the 9th Month of the Roman Calendar, 9 coming from the Latin for nine. But the Romans added two months to the calendar during the time of the Dictator, Julius Caesar (for his reforms click here) so it is now the 11th Month.

In Welsh it is ‘Tachwedd’ which means the month of slaughtering. Blōtmōnaþ (Blotmonath) in Anglo -Saxon – the month of blood. These reference the fact that this was the month when the surplus animals were slaughtered or as the historian, Venerable Bede has it, ‘the month of immolations’.

The image above from the Kalendar of Shepherds shows some aspects of November – star signs Scorpio and Sagittarius; Pigs are fattening up on the acorns in the forest and then being slaughtered, smoked or dried to preserve them through the hard winter. The text of the Kalendar gives a good summary of what early modern life in November was like. In summary, the day when the ‘poore die through want of Charitie’.

Kalendar of Sherherds – November
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July Julius Caesar’s Month

July – Kalendar of Shepherds 15th Century

July is named for Julius Caesar. Originally, the Roman Month was called Quintilis, as it was the fifth month of the Roman calendar, which originally started in March. Caesar reformed the calendar in 44BC and the Senate renamed the month after him.

It is called Lúil in Irish and Gorffennaf in Welsh. In Anglo Saxon July was Æfteraliða, or “after-mild;”, Liða, means “mild” or “gentle,” or the period of warm weather around Midsummer. June is Arraliða, or “before-mild”.

It is on average the warmest month in most of the Northern Hemisphere, where it is the second month of summer. The star signs for July are: Cancer (until July 22) and Leo (July 23 onwards),

‘

July is the month of Haymaking, as you can see from the July image (above from in the Kalendar of Shepherds). To find out more, wait for the next post.From the Kalendar of Shepherds comes this description of July.

First published, in 2023 and republished in 2024.

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Beware the Ides of March March 15th

shows an image of Brutus stabbing Caesar with 'funny' bubbles: Caesar says 'Brutus, whats that loud pelting noise on the roof' and Brutus replies, about to stab Julius Caesar 'Hail, Caesar'
With Apologies. From Facebook

SOOTHSAYER: Caesar!
CAESAR: Ha! Who calls?
CASCA: Bid every noise be still; peace yet again!
CAESAR: Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry ‘ Caesar!’ Speak. Caesar is turned to hear.
SOOTHSAYER: Beware the ides of March.
CAESAR: What man is that?
BRUTUS: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
CAESAR: Set him before me; let me see his face.
CASSIUS: Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.
CAESAR: What sayst thou to me now? Speak once again.
SOOTHSAYER: Beware the ides of March.
CAESAR: He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass.

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

This year there are many vital elections around the world; often involving populists like Julius Caesar. I rank Caesar with Napoleon as one of the Dictators who was, personally, an intelligent, reasonable man, who, in some ways, ruled ‘wisely’ but who was nonetheless willing to sacrifice millions of people for his personal ambition. Today, the world is faced with the more run-of-the-mill populists who are geniuses only in their own, often, deranged minds. I know, we as humans, might think, if only X would drop dead, how much better it would be? Brutus, being an honourable man, took action upon his thought. But, as often is the case, what seemed the ‘right thing’ to do, turned out to be a disaster for the Roman Republic which the plotters were trying to save. So, perhaps, still those assassinary thoughts, read this article in ‘History Today’ about the impact of Julius Caesar’s murder and do everything you can do to use democratic means to defeat egotists to whom truth means nothing.

Now, what the heck are or indeed is the Ides of March?

A Roman month was divided into three, first the Kalends, then the Nones and finally the Ides. These three days were the important days of the year. The Kalends is the 1st of the Month, the Nones the 7th of the Month and the Ides the Fifteenth of the Month. It is said to go back to the early days of Rome and a lunar calendar, The Kalends being the first tiny sliver of a crescent moon a couple of days after the New Moon; the Nones the first quarter of the Moon and the Ides was the full moon. But of course, it doesn’t really make that much sense as the full moon is 28 days after the new Moon not 15, and the three divisions, divide up the first half of the month, and leave the second half undivided.

How did you use it? When talking about a day in the future month you might say I’ll meet you on the 5th day before the Kalends. Debts were supposed to be paid on the Kalends and that is where we get our word calendar from. These public calendars were called Fasti, and this is the name of Ovid’s great Almanac Poem, the Fasti, which I often quote from.

This is a very bad photograph of a drawing by Herbert E Duncan Jr of a 1st Century Calendar
This is a very bad photograph of a drawing by Herbert E Duncan Jr of a 1st Century Calendar

I’ve never really understood this system, despite a few attempts, until I saw this drawing of a Roman Calendar. The first column, on the left, with the letters from D downwards represent the letters A – H which is a recurring cycle of 8 market days, running in tandem with Kalends, Nones etc. The second column begins with the Letter K for Kalends, (reading across then MART for March, then NP which means the Kalends is a day for public festivals). Back to the second column, below the K for Kalends, the days are counted down to the upcoming Nones, so the next one after Kalends is VI, meaning the 6th day before the March Nones. Then V, IIII, III, and PR means the day before Nones. Below and to the right of the PR are the letters NON which is, as you might hope, short for Nones.

In the second column below this is the number VIII which means the next day is the 8th day before the Ides of March. The fragment of stone from which this drawing comes does not continue down to the Ides, unfortunately.

Complicated, huh? It gets worse. The third column has a series of letters in it: F C C C NP NON F C C. We already know that the NON is short for Nones, The F means it’s a fastus, a permissible day when legal action can be taken. The C means C comitialis which on fasti days the Roman people could hold assemblies. We have already seen that NP marks days for public festivals. An N would mean days when political and judicial actions were prohibited, although there is not one here. The small unreadable text to the right is information, I believe, about holidays and historic events to be marked in the calendar. This is, in fact, a Roman Stone Almanac.

This confusing system survived Caesar’s major calendrical reforms when he transformed the Roman system, which was rotten at the core, to align it with an almost accurate calculation of the time the Sun takes to circle the earth (or the other way around!) to create the almost correct Julian Calendar.

But the Kalends, Nones, and Ides did not survive because, in the Imperial period, this strange division of time was replaced by the familiar 4 fold division of the month into our 7 days of a week. So, for the first time, you could work 24/7.

I will deal with Julius Caesar’s reforms in great depth on another occasion.

See also my post on the 10 month early Roman year,